Guwahati: The People's Consultative Group (PCG), appointed by the United Liberation Front of Asom, will discuss here on Friday taking a fresh initiative for a direct dialogue between the Centre and the militant outfit.

The next course of action for taking forward the peace initiative will be taken after this meeting, Rebati Phukan, a former footballer and childhood friend of ULFA chief Paresh Barua, told The Hindu on Thursday. The ULFA appointed him to assist writer Indira Goswami, chief facilitator of talks between the PCG and the Centre.

"There has been no stalemate in the peace process. The effort for bringing the two sides to the negotiating table is very much on the cards. The suspension and subsequent resumption of army operations were only related developments. The PCG has not called off the peace initiative," he said.

Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi assured a CPI (M) delegation that an all-party meeting would be convened to discuss the deadlock in the peace initiative. A three-member delegation of the State unit led by secretary Uddhab Barman submitted a memorandum demanding that both the Government and the ULFA to immediately hold a dialogue without preconditions.

Opposition Asom Gana Parishad president Brindaban Goswami also urged both the Centre and the ULFA to hold fire and sit for unconditional talks. The party demanded that the Army halt its operations and end its "atrocities" on innocent people in the name of intensifying operations against the ULFA.

The Army resumed its operations on September 23 after New Delhi called off the unilateral truce as the ULFA refused to send a direct communiqué expressing its willingness to hold direct talks and stepped up extortion. The outfit gunned down a tea garden manager.

The PCG pulled out of the parleys on September 27 in protest against the Centre's decision to call off the informal truce.

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